If you were gonna categorize this, we'd be studying a course on our timeless creator. The book we'd be looking at right now is The Glory of God, and the chapter is Why No Glory? That's what we're still talking about. Some major things have taken place in a little bit more than our lifetime, just a little bit back before us, and they've changed in such a way that that information has been left out for us. And the only indication we have is what this thing tells us. Because the great orators of the faith, so to speak, in the last 50, 100 years have just pretty much left it out too. And what's happened is the church began to narrow its focus. The Bible says, they comparing themselves among themselves and by themselves are not wise. You start comparing yourself to somebody else, you're making a big mistake. You're in for a big downfall. If you want to compare your wealth to somebody else, pretty soon you're going to feel really poor. But do you know what happens when preachers get together? How are you doing over there? How's the church? You know what he's asking? What numbers do you have? If you don't tell them right out, that's where they go. Well, how many are you running? How many are you running Sunday school? Were you running any buses? How many of you got saved? How many of you got baptized? How many missionaries are you supporting? How much was your offering? That's what they want to know. Why is that? Because they're unwise. That's why. And the Bible says, taking heed thereto according to the word of God. Last week, we studied and got into this thing a little bit about the difference that it makes in a Christian's life when they actually take heed to the word of God. You know what it means when you begin to actually change your life and pattern your life after the things that God's told you, so that instead of acting like Adam and Eve and doing what you want to do, you begin to act like God asked you to act. You say, ask? That's right. If you love me, keep my commandments. He said, what commandments? Well, the things I told you that I'd like you to do. You think God's going to make you do what he wants you to do? The Laodicean Church would have you think, and when I say Laodicean Church, understand that I'm talking about the church that came after the Philadelphia Church Age, and that's the time period that I believe we're living in, the last days, the final period of this thing. And that Laodicean Church Age is a mess, and God tells us some stuff about it, and that's the reason we know that things aren't the way they should be. And because this stuff's left out of our education, all we know is what we've been taught. And I know what I've been taught since I got saved. Brother Mark mirrors exactly the same thing. And all of a sudden, God begins to do something a little over three years ago here, and he begins to change all of this, and our understanding starts to get enlightened. Is it understanding about what's happened to the church? No. What is it? It's understanding about God. And what's happening is when God says, okay, you begin to give me the glory, then I'll begin to enlighten your understanding. That's what it's like. Instead of having this narrow focus that the church has developed, our focus is starting to expand to the point we see God in everything now. And I see him everywhere. And it's not just a matter of when some little old bad thing happens, I think, oh my, what was I thinking? What did I do? What are you getting even with me for, God? That isn't the way this thing works at all. He says, taking heed thereto according to thy word, and that's what we're supposed to do. Become doers of the word, not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. Anyway, this is our timeless creator, and we've been off the subject now, believe it or not, for two full months. You say, oh, for what subject? It's about talking about the end times. We got up to seven ages of the earth, and then the eighth one is that new heaven and new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness. And by the time you get up in there, everything begins to change, and there's a lot more questions about that period of time than there is this. When a church starts narrowing its focus, major things begin to happen. You say, well, can you give me an illustration? I can only think of one right now, and it's really not something that is gonna be a major thing one way or the other, because God's gonna run everything and he's gonna control everything, but we got a Second Amendment right. Oh, you're gonna get political? No, I'm just gonna show you something. That Second Amendment right had nothing to do with going out and feeding your family. You know how you know that? Because back then, everybody had to go out and feed their family that way. They weren't all just going to the supermarket, you know? There wasn't too many of those around. And so they were having to do whatever they had to do to feed their families. Know what? It wasn't gun collectors either. It wasn't sporting events. It wasn't hobbyists. What was it? It had something to do with something else entirely. And now the focus has gotten down to the point where if it's not about sporting or not about hunting or not about gun collecting, you've narrowed the focus down to where you forgot what this thing's all about. And that's a fact. You say, what's it about? I'm not gonna get any more politically correct than that. But there's a greater meaning to the whole purpose. It's just like this thing with God. You get over there and that Bible says Psalm 145 right there behind me. Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised and his greatness is unsearchable. One generation shall praise thy works to another and shall declare thy mighty acts. That's what stopped. What stopped was talking about him and who he is and what he does and how magnificent he is and how much power he has, what genius he has. Envision someone who can speak things into existence. I'm not talking about just sun, moon, and stars. He can speak the animals into existence with all the details and intricacies of their design. And then he just says, let them bring forth after their kind. reproductive system and everything complete all the way through. I don't care if it's mammal, you know, or insect or something laying eggs or, you know, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if it's fish or birds or anything. It just speaks it, it happens. Man, that sounds pretty powerful. Yes, it is. And the reason you guys think about it in an abstract term is because God's not real to you. You don't envision him doing that. You don't envision actually meeting someone that actually has that power and capability. When I'm talking about this, this is some abstract thing out there, and it's not real to you. It's kind of like, oh, that'd be nice. It's like talking to a kid about Disney World or Disneyland and he's never been there. It's not real to him. You can say all you want, but it's not real to him. The only way to get it real to him is get him there. Well, right now we see through a glass darkly, then face to face. Blessed is he that hath believed and yet not seen. These are things I'm talking about when he said, take heed to the word of God, be doers of the word, not hearers only. You actually start to change how you think about things. Why isn't God real? God isn't real for two reasons. The first one is because nobody has bragged on him, that something happened to the church. And the second one is the Holy Spirit is the one that makes these things real to you, and he's not making them real to you because God said, I will not give my glory to another. That's what's happened. Well, let's move on here. Church dropped the ball, and I believe it was the Laodicean Church. And we've kind of built a skeleton last week. I'll try to put a little bit of meat on the bones. I'm not going to do very much in a few minutes here. How many of you ever saw that program Smarter Than a Fifth Grader? You ever seen that? There's all kinds of stuff in there fifth graders are supposed to know, but they don't know. It's pretty interesting. Well, here's a fifth grade lesson. So what's this fifth grade lesson? Well, this guy named Thomas Grink, born in 1786 to 1834. This eminent lawyer and scholar was born in Charleston, South Carolina, graduated Yale College, 1807. He gained a considerable reputation as a politician. but is best known for his being an advocate of peace, Sunday school, and of the Bible. He was a man of deep feeling, earnest purpose, and pure life. So what's this got to do with anything? This is school, fifth grade. Listen to this stuff. There's a classic, the best the world has ever seen, the noblest that ever honored and dignified the language of mortals. If we look into its antiquity, we discover a title to our veneration unrivaled in the history of literature. If we have respect to its evidence, they are found in the testimony of miracles and prophecies, in the ministry of men, of nature, of angels, yea, of God, manifest in the flesh. If we consider its authenticity, no other pages have survived the lapse of time that can be compared with it. If we examine its authority, for it speaks as never man spake, we discover that it came from heaven in a vision of prophecy under the sanction of Him who is creator of all things, and the giver of every good and perfect gift. If we reflect on its truths, they are lovely and spotless, sublime and holy as God Himself, unchangeable as His nature, durable as His righteous opinion, and versatile as the moral condition of mankind. If we regard the value of its treasures, we must estimate them, not like the relics of classic antiquity, but by the perishable glory and beauty, virtue and happiness of this world. but by an enduring perfection and supreme felicity of an eternal kingdom. If we inquire who are the men that have recorded its truths, vindicated its rights, and illustrated its excellence of its scheme from the depths of ages, from the living world, from a populace, continent, and from the isles of the sea, comes forth the answer. The patriarch and the prophet, the evangelist, the martyr, And if raising our eyes from time and eternity, from the world of mortals to the world of just men, made perfect, from the visible creation, marvelous beauty and glories as it is, to the invisible creation of angels and seraphs, from the footstool of God to the throne of God Himself, we ask, what are the blessings that flow from this single volume? Let the question be answered by the pen of the evangelist, the harp of the poet, and the records of the book of life. Such is the best of the classics the world has ever admired. Such the noblest that man has ever adopted as a guide. So what's that? Fifth grade. When? Philadelphia church age. Something happened. What happened? You know when that thing was written, Revelation? That thing was written when John was on Patmos. Way on back about 30 years or so after Christ died, somewhere in that area. He says that later to see in church, I know thy works that thou art neither cold nor hot. So then because thou art neither cold nor hot, but lukewarm, I'll spew thee out of my mouth. Thou sayest, I am rich and increased with goods and have need of nothing. But knowest not that thou art poor, wretched, miserable, naked, and blind. You know what's wrong with us? We think we got the answers. We think we know everything. We think we've been taught everything. What we don't know is that we make God sick. You say, us? We're the best of the best. That's right, the best of the best make God sick. When he's talking to the church, he's not talking to everybody that names the name of Christ. He's talking about born again, body of Christ, blood-washed believers, indwelled by the Holy Spirit. He's talking about saved people, and they make him sick. How do they make him sick? I know thy works that are neither cold nor hot. Like I asked last week, why are you here? Are you here out of a sense of duty? Obligation? Because it's right? Where's your passion? Where's the desire from within you to know more about the one that made you? Where's that desire? It's missing. Why is it missing? Why is that passion missing? That passion's simply missing because something has been missing for a while. And what it is is the reason you don't have those feelings and affections for God and the desire to know Him and be drawn to Him is because you don't know Him well enough. If when I start speaking of His creation and you start envisioning Him actually forming man out of the dust of the ground and making this model clay thing up and then going, whew, and Adam goes, oh, hey, well this is all right, who are you? You think he'd have to ask that? No. God put all that information in him just like that. He didn't have to go to school. He says, hey, go name the critters. Ever buy an animal for a child? What's the first thing you ask him? What are you going to name him? Where's that stuff come from? It comes from everything else that God gave you. It came from God himself. You don't have any emotion, any feeling, any experience, any wisdom, any intelligence, nothing. You don't have anything that didn't come from God first. That's where those things come from. They come from our Creator. We're just a reflection of Him. But because something else changed, we don't see it that way. We see ourselves as, don't worry, be happy. God loves you. And that's as far as it goes. The Christian life is a whole lot deeper than that. It's eternal. Eternal. Our life is nothing but a vapor that appears for a short time and passes away. We missed the whole thing. And it wasn't necessarily all our fault. What we need to do is take heed to the word of God. Now where'd that thing come from? It came from a fifth grade textbook. Williams Holmes McGuffey. Born September 23, 1800, died May 4, 1873, was an American professor and college professor who is best known for writing the McGuffey Readers, one of the nation's first and most widely used series of textbooks. It's estimated that at least 120 million copies of McGuffey's Readers were sold between 1836 and 1960, placing its sales in a category with the Bible and Webster's Dictionary. When was that? The end of the Philadelphia church age. Something interesting. Nine years after that, something else happened. Say, what happened? Beginning of the end. That's what happened. On February 12th, 1809, the same day as Abraham Lincoln's birth, Susanna Darwin gave birth to Charles Darwin of Shrewbury, England. The fifth son of Robert and Warren Darwin grew up in a relatively wealthy family that stressed education and the arts. What do you see being stressed today? Think about it. What is it? Education and the arts. Now listen to what happened to this guy. Charles Darwin's grandparents were Erasmus Darwin, the famous scientist, and Josiah Wedgwood. Who's that? Josiah Wedgwood, the China and pottery maker. We got something hanging on our walls at the house. Darwin grew up in a Christian family and for the early part of his life professed Christianity. When you look at Jarwin as he did in his later life, you would expect that as a boy he was a dedicated young scholar. To tell you the truth, he wasn't. He was described as rather lazy, and unless he was working with something that had to do with science, he wasn't interested. Science? I think the Bible tells us something about science. When did he tell us this? Oh, back before Paul died. What'd he tell us? Oh, Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoid profane and vain babblings and oppositions of science falsely so called, which some professing have aired concerning the faith. Professor? We're gonna study today, professor. Well, we're gonna study, you know, some of the final teachings of Darwin and how we came from the monkey and that came out of a swamp. They say life started in the water. You know what the problem is? The minute you try to put those proteins together underwater, they fall apart. There's one place life didn't start, and that was in water. You say, well, where'd it start? Can you tell where the life came from in a seed? I planted some tomato seeds the other day. I got them to pop up in three days. Where'd the life come from? It was already in there. Life is not generated by accident. Life is not generated from fire. Life is not generated by the elements. It's either in there or it's not. Man and woman have a child. Where did life come from? It was already in there or it's not. Life is a continuation of something that previously existed that was alive. And in him is life. And that's where it came from. It came from previous life. Only life can beget life. Death doesn't beget life. Life begets life. It's part of design. Anyway, moving along, I could read a whole bunch more of this, and I'm not gonna have time to get too much into it, but the bottom line is, he went out and he went to school, and he got educated a little bit, and the more he got educated, the more he got interested in plants and animals and all this stuff, and he went on this big, long trip. And he was held out to be somebody really special, and so they asked him to keep these plants and stuff. And he said, okay, I'll do that, but only on one condition. I'll go with you and charge you nothing. You just let me keep everything and let me bring them back. So he came back from this trip, and he had all of these animals and these critters with him. And he started studying those and came to the conclusion that this whole thing came from something else. I thought God created it, but look at this. Why did he think that? What had happened to him? Well, he was raised a Christian. He believed certain things. So what happened? Romans 1. This is what happened. First of all, he got interested in science. The doers of the word not hearers only. Beware. He got messed up. Romans 1. We'll start in 14. I am a debtor both to the Greeks and to the barbarians, both to the wise and the unwise. So as much as there in me is, I am ready to preach the gospel to you that are at Rome also. For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation. Are you ashamed of the power of God? Are you some kind of a fool, if you are? If this guy that made me, you say, made you? Yeah, made me. By him were all things made. It is he that hath made us and not we ourselves. You say, well, that was only indirect by Adam. Are you kidding? He says about Jeremiah, before I formed thee in the belly, I knew thee. And it says in another place, you don't even know how the bones grow in a womb. We're starting to learn a little bit. How come? Because in the last days, knowledge shall be increased. Where'd it come from? It came from God. Why? Because man's desire is to know more. Why? We're fixing to find out. Man's got something busted inside of him from the very beginning, they do. For the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith as it is written, the just shall live by faith. For the wrath of God is revealed from the heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who hold the truth in unrighteousness. What's he saying? He's saying, I'm showing you everything you need to know to live by faith. You know what was wrong with Adam and Eve? They didn't live by faith. Do they know what death is? No. Had they ever seen anything die? No. What'd they have? They only had what God told them. And if they'd have responded to what he told them and done what he said, things would have been a lot different. He said, I want you to live by faith. What do you mean, God? Don't eat that one. If they didn't know what was going on and really understood, they'd say, man, why are you putting poison in here to kill us, God? We're just like little bitty kids. We don't know any better. He said, I know you don't. I told you to leave it alone. If you just do what I tell you. Let me tell you something. When you start playing games with God, he don't play fair. OK, I'm going to count to three. God says, don't eat them. That's one. and that's all you get. One shot. Do or die. Well, they died. What happened? Well, he said, by faith. You know what was wrong with Charles Darwin? He didn't want to live by faith. The Bible says that faith is a substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. You know what Darwin wanted? He didn't want to live by faith. He said, I want to understand. I want something tangible. It's like the little girl that was afraid, you know, in the thunderstorm and started crying, and mama came in and saw her in the middle of the night, and she said, I'm just afraid. Well, God's in here with you, dearie, you know? She says, yeah, but I want somebody with skin on him. You know, that's what we want. You know, one of the first questions we ask when something happens to us, especially bad stuff, why, God? What's the matter, don't you trust me? When are you gonna start thinking that way? You're not gonna think that way until you think different about God. And the reason you don't think different about God, and the reason you keep asking why, is because the stuff the Laodicean Church teaches you doesn't fill in those blanks. Now I've heard all kinds of sermons on why the righteous suffer, and there's some tangible stuff in that. Why do people die like they die? Why do good people suffer? Because there aren't any good, no not one. So death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned. If we actually suffered in proportion to our sins, oh my, we've all received less than our iniquities deserve. You see how true the Bible is? You see how our perspective is so different? He said, I told you, your ways are not my ways, saith the Lord. Why, God? Never mind. I already gave you the answer. Why shouldn't I eat it again, God? What's going to happen, God? No answer. Why? Same reason we get no answer. He already told us what we needed to know. He said, when are you going to do something about what I already told you? You start doing something about that, then I'll start moving forward with you. But why should I do anything for you like this? Hey, Dad, can I have some more money to put gas in the car? You brought home 27 speeding ticks in the last two weeks. You wrecked the car twice. You want gas, and you expect me to answer that question? That's what's going on in his mind. You say, why, God? About the same kind of answer. Are you kidding? Tell me why I should do anything for you. Aren't you glad he's not like that? Could you answer that question? Could you really? Why should I do anything for you, child of God? Hmm, I never thought about it like that. That's because you're not thinking about what's on his mind, you're only interested in what's on your mind. And the reason you're thinking about what's on your mind instead of his is because that right up there has been left out. Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised and his greatness is unsearchable. One generation shall praise thy works to another and shall declare thy mighty acts. You don't see this overall picture. You don't get it. Verse 20, for the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen. What's this? This is all God's gonna show you. being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse. What is that? That's all creation. That's nature. That's the universe. That's the genius of the design of everything that He has made and created. That's what it is. And every one of us, including, what about the heathen that never heard? They're without excuse. Well, how are they going to hear without a preacher? They're without excuse. What are you questioning that for, anyway? To prove your point, to prove you're right. We need more money to give to more missions so we can get out here and win the world. We'll take the city for Christ. Boy, they sure are losing a lot of battles, aren't they? I'd like to see them take Miami. You could put every Christian on this planet in Miami and try to win that city, and you'd come out of there just about the way you went in. Why? Because they've already got enough of the prophecy, they got enough of the word of God to respond to it, just like the rich man, when he went to hell, said, send somebody back, and they said they wouldn't even hear him if it was Abraham himself. They're not gonna listen to anybody. They already made up their own mind. Now, there's a ton of people on this earth that are already destined and bound for hell because God gave up on them, and he says, okay, I give you over to a reprobate mind to do those things which are inconvenient, which follow some of these verses. Verse 22 and 23, professing themselves to be wise, they became fools and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like an incorruptible man and birds and four-footed beasts and creeping things. And what you're being taught nowadays, as fast as they can teach it in fifth grade and every place else, it's all evolved. It was from a big old bang, and the glory of God's been left out. And the church is the one that dropped the ball. The church narrowed its focus to only the things that nobody's going to really give them a hard time over. because they're intimidated by an intellectual crowd because they don't have the degrees, they don't have the sophistication, they don't have the education, and this church has been intimidated to the point that they've dropped every argument about God that's not purely based on faith alone, the church, and salvation, and the cross, and winning souls, and working harder for the church. And it's a mess, we are living in a mess. You say, where's the hope? Fortunately, you have hope. It is needful that offenses come, but woe unto the man by whom they come. Those things are going to happen. The Laodicean church is gonna make God sick, but you don't have to be the one to do it. So how do you change that? You start begging God for the knowledge of the holy, to understand and to know him better. When bad things happen to you, you should have desires. But unless you feel a greater desire to have it His way than your own way, you're on unstable ground. You're just a selfish child. You don't recognize the power and the magnificence of the one you're talking to. You ever made a mistake? He never has. Now, how are you gonna justify your opinion next to His? Let's close in prayer.